Human Rights and God go hand in hand according to Glenn Beck

I was watching the news last night and they had a segment where Glenn
Beck talks about how there must be a God, otherwise where do we get our
inalienable rights...that really bugged me...for one because I
would not have known how to answer that and two the more that I thought about it the more I felt like we don't need God to have rights...So those who believe in Buddha they don't get human rights? Or they get less rights?

I think we are all humans, self aware, we feel pain and can empathize with others even animals. We deserve to be treated humanely because we are...self aware, and we can understand others pain. We deserve rights because no one else's rights should be above my own not even the government's...

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Excellent, responses guys...I have heard about the social contract...I guess I just panicked a little...I will definitely be doing a little more reading about it. I did not like not knowing what a good answer would be so I went where I knew someone would know the answer...I like that Glenn Beck...but apparently we don't agree on everything...*sigh*

There would seem to be two main possibilities. One is that ‘human rights’ are somehow embedded in nature, and that they can be ‘discovered’ and explicated rather in the way that science discovers natural phenomena empirically and seeks to describe them in terms of its theoretical frameworks. The second is that the way in which we have assigned such rights to humans is basically similar to the way in which we assign a status to numerous other functions or tokens. Examples of the latter can be as varied as the assignment of monetary value to a sheet of paper such as a $50 note, or the assignment of the status of ‘married’ to a couple by a verbal declaration and an associated confirming document.

The first kind of explanation is, in my view, highly questionable. There is some possibility that what could be termed ‘moral facts’ are discernible in the behaviour of non-human primates, and it is plausible that groups of our hominid ancestors evolved something akin to moral sanctions and practices out of necessity, in order to ensure sufficient group solidarity for survival. However, any putative pathway from these hypothesised practices to modern conceptions of human rights can only be highly speculative.

So the second explanation, rights as humanly assigned through a gradual historical process, seems much more probable, and is of quite recent origin. The implication of this explanation is that they have no permanent authoritative status. They could potentially be revoked by some future human contingency which we can only conjecture. This means that, as in the case of other abstract humanly assigned values, it is up to us to defend and maintain them if we think they are worth having.

There would seem to be two main possibilities. One is that ‘human rights’ are somehow embedded in nature, and that they can be ‘discovered’ and explicated rather in the way that science discovers natural phenomena empirically and seeks to describe them in terms of its theoretical frameworks. The second is that the way in which we have assigned such rights to humans is basically similar to the way in which we assign a status to numerous other functions or tokens. Examples of the latter can be as varied as the assignment of monetary value to a sheet of paper such as a $50 note, or the assignment of the status of ‘married’ to a couple by a verbal declaration and an associated confirming document.

The first kind of explanation is, in my view, highly questionable. There is some possibility that what could be termed ‘moral facts’ are discernible in the behaviour of non-human primates, and it is plausible that groups of our hominid ancestors evolved something akin to moral sanctions and practices out of necessity, in order to ensure sufficient group solidarity for survival. However, any putative pathway from these hypothesised practices to modern conceptions of human rights can only be highly speculative.

So the second explanation, rights as humanly assigned through a gradual historical process, seems much more probable, and is of quite recent origin. The implication of this explanation is that they have no permanent authoritative status. They could potentially be revoked by some future human contingency which we can only conjecture. This means that, as in the case of other abstract humanly assigned values, it is up to us to defend and maintain them.

Humans are social creatures by nature. We need interaction to not only survive, but to thrive. Our babies die if there is not enough social contact, even if every biological need is met. In order for social creatures to interact, there has to be ground rules for appropriate behavior. If we did not sanction against things like murder, then the society cannot coexist, due to fear and chaos running amuck. Look at how much chaos reigned in upperclass societies that felt immune to common law. They ended up with all sorts of problems like entire family lineages being murdered.

It is social evolution. We give people these rights in order to reserve them for ourselves so that we can have the social interaction we need to thrive. In other words, rights lead to survival.

I'm with you. As I was reading these, I was thinking about Thomas Paine (just started his bio by Christopher Hitchens) and the question of where these "Rights of Man" come from being certainly not from a god, since gods of differing societies recommend destruction of those who don't worship their "chosen, true" god. They certainly do come from the agreements we make as we move through society in order to propel ourselves socially as well as maintain relationships intimately. It's thought that certain animals, including humans, evolved not by the doctrine of "survival of the fittest", but by their development of cooperation and, eventually, collaborative and relational societies. In other words, simplistically, you may be a big strong brute, but if you can't get along with others you may be ostracized and/or imprisoned and not have a chance at reproduction or social elevation.

I think Glen Beck is a pompous ass and I wouldn't listen to damn thing that comes out of his pie hole. There are no such things as inalienable rights. What there is, is luck. If you live in a country where others fought and died to make sure that it isn't a dictatorship, you got it made in the shade. Be thankful. Otherwise, it sucks to be you.

Thank you everyone for responding. I enjoyed bringing some of you into this discussion. After more observation, I don't think I like that Glen Beck after all as much as I did. I think our rights do come from the social contract that if we all work together and don't hurt each other...then our tribe or group as a whole may be able to succeed. This explanation made sense to me and I would think that this is the correct answer.

Beck is an asshole, and he seems to be quite loony. I think all the people representing the fox news network are a bit nuts. I stopped watching them a long time ago because they never gave any straight news. Just their own version of it.